An amateur’s trials with social media

For a small business, social media has so much going for it; not least because it’s free. I have diligently kept my LinkedIn contacts ticking over – connecting with people as I meet them and finding old friends and contacts. I’ve also realised that I’ve occasionally accidentally connected with people I’ve never met (mistaken identity) – no big deal, other than I don’t really want to appear to be a ‘cold caller’.

But for getting your message across, I feel that LinkedIn lacks something – I’m not sure that many people often read the updates and news posts.

Which is where, it seems to me, Twitter comes in. I might just be speaking for myself, but I’m far more likely to look at tweets from people I’m following than LinkedIn news.

However you have to get a following in order to make Twitter work for you. And that means tweeting regularly, which involves discipline and, at least for me, effort. So I’m finding that LinkedIn still has the edge in getting the message out there, at least for now.

The other thing I’m trying to get my head around is timing – i.e. the time of day that people look at Twitter and LinkedIn. Whereas a marketing campaign sent out in the evening has every chance of being forgotten by the time your ‘target’ is back in the office the following morning, a tweet is more likely to be read and acted upon in the evening.

In fact I’ve noticed that many people tend to look at LinkedIn on a Sunday evening, probably on an ipad in front of the telly. It’s not like real work is it? In our heads I guess we can’t justify doing it during normal working hours, so the evening is the right time. I guess that’s also a knock-on from the impact of the Blackberry – just keeping on top of everything 24/7.

So I’m learning, I continue to make mistakes, but it’s an interesting journey.